This is why they’re called “Laughers.”
When a team dominates the scoreboard the way the Kraken did over the Canadiens, 8-2 Tuesday at Bell Centre, it’s a rare chance for players to cut up during a game. We have the receipts.
Adam “Big Cat” Larsson celebrated fellow defenseman Brandon Montour’s hat trick goal by doing what fans do after a player’s third goal of a game – he tossed his hat (Cat And The Hat, see?)
This was just the third hat trick in Kraken franchise history, and the first ever for Montour. What’s more, it was a “natural hat trick,” meaning no player for either team scored between Monte’s first and last goals. How rare is that for a defenseman? It’s only been done a half-dozen times in the last 30 years.
Larsson is known to have a wicked, though rarely observed outside the dressing room, sense of humor. Remember, it was an image of his bowl-cut haircut that teammate Matty Beniers had immortalized on a t-shirt as “prank revenge” and worn by members of the team – even by Larsson.
Jared McCann (19) used his stick to return the lid to its owner. Larsson on the bench kept his game face, but Will Borgen was clearly enjoying the moment.
You know who else enjoyed the moment? Montour, who scored twice on the power play and likes to have fun during games, wearing a wide grin on the bench. Why not? He’s up to nine points (four goals, five assists) in 10 Kraken games this season.
Montour’s only difficulty was deciding how he felt about his four-point night. “It doesn’t mean anything to me, to be honest,” he said first, before adding, “This is a game that obviously you remember, and you cherish it and you enjoy it, obviously, with the guys.”
Montour Was A Squirt, Too
A goal, an assist, and a fight in the same game has long been know as a “Gordie Howe Hat Trick,” in honor of the Detroit Red Wings legend who was a prodigious scorer and threw a mean elbow, too.
If three goals, an assist, and a hooking penalty in one game doesn’t have a nickname, maybe we can start calling that the “Brandon Montour,” because he appeared in all those categories on Tuesday’s game log.
Montour’s 1st period infraction was also an opportunity for some good clean, if drippy, fun. The Kraken were already leading 4-0 in the 1st period when the defenseman was sentenced, so he couldn’t have been feeling too anxious.
Cameras are everywhere these days, including NHL penalty boxes. Players angry at being consigned to the “Sin Bin” have been known to whack the remote camera with their sticks, or cover the lens with a towel.
We wonder if anyone before has actually altered the camera output using multiple squirts from a water bottle. Not that Brandon was angry – more likely, having some fun, or maybe bored, or both.
His first squirt didn’t do the job, so Brandon tried again. This time, bulls-eye. The direct hit smudged the lens, after which Montour used the bottle for another purpose – taking a drink.
A Good Time Had By All (Of The Kraken)
Bottom Image: KHN Screengrab
When you have an evening like Montour had, in the birthplace of hockey, Montreal, no less, there could be no other choice for the awarding of the pro wrestling belt. The other big free agent acquisition this summer, Chandler Stephenson, picked a bad night to record four assists.
Don’t get the impression that Montour got to have all the fun. Twelve different Kraken skaters recorded a point; those with multiple points besides Montour and Stephenson were Jaden Schwartz (3) and McCann, Oliver Bjorkstrand, and Jamie Oleksiak (2 each).
But we’re not just talking numbers – well, in a way we are in one other case. When the game ended and congratulations were shared with winning goalie Joey Daccord, Tye Kartye wasn’t wearing his own #12 helmet. He was wearing the #20 which normally belongs to Bjorkstrand.
Earlier, during a stoppage in play, KHN cameras caught winger Brandon Tanev singing along with the in-arena music.
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